I'd be a bloody liar if I said I thought people want to read my autobiography in order to find out what my first dolly's name was (Patsy) or the fact I was more or less brought up by a dog called Senta from birth to about two. Or indeed that I was born dead during a home birth and and had to be revived with two transfusions of my father's blood which would have been fine, had he not drunk the best part of a bottle of malt to celebrate the arrival of his deceased first born. Maybe people would like to know about my life as a teen drugs and gun mule? Or my time with outlaw biker gang the Satans Slaves? Or.... No. What people want to know is all the stuff about my time with the band.
In these Stories, stories made up of light and dark, of comedy and pain, of the beauty and ugliness of human nature, I'll tell the truth, the unvarnished, off message, unofficial truth as I know it. Now, it will be my version. What I saw, heard and felt. I know there will be howls of outrage from some quarters, self righteous cries of 'disrespectful!' And there will be those who feel I will be speaking ill of the dead. I can't help that because sometimes, the dead did terrible things. There will, of course, be blustering denials and attempts to discredit and dismiss what I write from band and fans. Character assassinations and insults of the 'what a fucking bitch' variety. Nothing I can do about that. If people really want to believe men who are extremely talented at singing in tune, twanging songs from a plank with strings or banging a drum in time are living saints and heroes, nothing I do, or do not say, will make any difference to their dearly held faith. If I say these men are just human beings not Jedi or zen monks, I should know, as I deliberately and knowingly created that saintly image, just as I co-created that band.
For the record the band, and you all know who it is, will be referred to throughout as the band, not Barry Jepson's Third Bollock which they very nearly were called, and the singer will be referred to as X, since he is phobic to the point of obsessive mania about anyone knowing anything
about him other than his image as the Decent Bloke If Not The Actual Messiah Of Rock and genuinely thinks everything else about him is secret. Really. He really thinks that, god love him. And god does love him, nearly as much as I do. If I have to name the crewmen or musicians I'll think of nicknames. They may be nicer than the ones they had for me. Or not.
I realise you might be wondering why the need for all this going round the houses. That will be because you're not a die hard fan of the band and don't understand the savagely protective and blindly worshipping nature of the hard core fans. I do, because in common with the band's image, I created that too. Or more fair to say I created the ethos and did everything to encourage it so the band and more importantly, X, would have a lifetime's career in music. Otherwise he would have been a social worker in somewhere like Huddersfield. Yes, I can hear all those angelic voices crooning about gosh, he'd have been a wonderful social worker because he is as a Living Saint upon the earth halleluja, but you will just have to trust me when I say charming, generous, funny and adorable as he can be, I wouldn't inflict him on a troubled family for my weight in gold bars. Which is considerable.
But these are not stories about the band, or X as such. They are stories about my life with the band and my time with X. If you think you're going to read Hello! style tidbits of juicy gossip about who fucked who on what tour, who did their entire tour wages in coke and the band's daring escapades, leave this Group. Seriously. You'll only be confused and upset if you stay and carry on reading. The reality of band life and the fantasy peddled by the media - and I confess, by me in the past to some extent - are completely different.
OK. I have to put in some stuff about my early life, because unless you know something of my background you will be utterly baffled as to why I did the things I did and allowed to be done to me the things that were done. I'll keep it short though since you now know my dolly's name anyway. But it forms the first Story.
Welcome to the Memory Box. Goodbye and good luck if you decide to leave. Everyone - fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night.
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